This Honey Olive Oil Cake is dressed with figs and drizzled honey. It’s a simple olive oil cake that delicate and moist it’s perfect for your next dinner party.
In this economy who is making olive oil cakes?! Me! I’ve done all the work for you, so you don’t have to waste your money using your expensive extra virgin olive oil on a recipe that isn’t good. I mean who doesn’t love an amazing honey olive oil cake?
Fig season is around only late summer to early mid fall depending on where you live. With that it only makes sense to add some beautiful figs to enjoy with this honey olive oil cake. And if you love figs make sure to try my homemade vanilla fig jam, it goes so well on everything.
This honey olive oil cake is so versatile you can enjoy it plain or frosted, you can use any fresh fruit toppings and any citrus blends you like (though I will say the lemon flavor with fresh oranges go so well together). It’s just that easy! You don’t need a fancy stand mixer to mix your cake batter.
Here’s why you’ll love this honey olive oil cake
- It’s a simple cake, it’s so easy! comes together in one bowl!
- Make it with or without the mascarpone whipped topping and enjoy it with a cup of tea on a Saturday morning
- Perfect cake for a get together dessert. It’s effortlessly beautiful
Choosing the right Olive oils:
There are so many different types of olive oils in the stores, so how do we determine which is the best olive oil to use? I am no expert but here’s a jest of what I researched to understand.
- Glass container: A good quality olive oil should be stored in a glass bottle and not a plastic one
- Location: It should only have one location, if the olive oil is imported from different parts of the world, we aren’t too sure about where it came from exactly
- Ingredients: Make sure the ingredients only listed is olive oil
Honey Olive Oil Cake Ingredients:
- Extra-Virgin Olive Oil: I used Carapelli EVOO is this recipe, it’s my favorite brand. It’s affordable and you can easily find it in your grocery store.
- Flour: All Purpose Flour
- Baking Powder/Baking soda: Read more about baking soda and baking powder here
- Sugar: Sweetens the cake, sugar just doesn’t only sweeten the cake, but it always provides the cake with moisture, so reducing the amount of sugar in a recipe isn’t always a good idea.
- Honey: Gives the honey olive oil cake the texture and sweetness it needs.
- Eggs: Make sure to use large eggs at room temperature, this recipe uses egg yolks and whole eggs in the recipe
- Milk: Use whole milk and not skim or 2% if possible
- Citrus-Lemon and Orange: This blend is really amps the flavor profile! But feel free to use either or the other in your olive oil honey cake.
- Vanilla Extract: I never skip out on this!
How to make honey olive oil cake
Preheat oven to 350F.
Grease a 9-inch springform cake pan (if you don’t have one just use an 8in or 9-inch cake pan) with nonstick spray and line the bottom of the cake pan with parchment paper and set to the side.
In a large bowl combine all your wet ingredients into the bowl and beat until well combined.
(A helpful tip, measure 1/3 cup honey after you measure the olive oil, it’s easier to get the honey to come out)
Add lemon zest and orange zest into another large bowl and add in the sugar. With your fingers rub the zest with the sugar to release the oil in the zest. If you choose to do a blended citrus zest divide it with half lemon zest and orange zest.
Measure out the dry ingredients and add it to the sugar zest mixture, whisk until dry ingredients are fully combined.
Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and then mix until there are no more dry ingredients.
Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula to ensure that everything has been thoroughly mixed in.
Pour the honey olive oil cake batter into the prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in has crumbs sticking to it.
Allow the cake to cool before removing the cake from the springform pan and then transfer to a cooling rack to allow the cake to fully cool for 30-40 minutes before frosting the cake.
Mascarpone Frosting:
In a medium saucepan with water in it filled about 1/3 of the way, put it on the stove and turn the heat to medium low heat.
With a heat proof safe bowl place on top of the saucepan and add the butter, mascarpone cheese, honey and heavy cream. (Make sure that the water in the pot is not directly touching the bottom of the bowl and that there is always water in the pot)
Heat the mascarpone mixture until all the ingredients have combine, which should take about 5-10 minutes.
Place the mixture into the fridge to allow it to cool for 25 minutes. Once cool, whip the mixture with an electric hand mixer or stand mixer until it forms medium to stiff peaks.
Assembly:
Place Honey olive oil cake on a serving plate and with a spatula lather the honey mascarpone frosting on top of the cake and then dress the cake with fresh ripe figs and a drizzle of honey syrup.
Enjoy the cake or set the cake in the refrigerator to let the flavors mend before serving.
Storage:
Honey Olive Oil cake must be refrigerated. It’s an extremely moist cake and will last up to 5 or 6 days in an airtight container in the fridge.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Figs out of Season?
Use seasonal fruit to dress this delicious cake, edible flowers would be beautiful too!
Can I substitute cream cheese with mascarpone cheese?
Yes, if you do skip the double boiler method. There are more details about this kind of cream cheese whipped cream in my berry Chantilly cake recipe.
My Mascarpone frosting looks curdled, help!
The double boiler method is the best way to prevent the mascarpone from curdling. If the mascarpone curdles its most likely because of the temperatures of the ingredients are not the same. To fix this bring heat the mascarpone frosting over the double boiler again, chill and then whip again.
The top of the cake is a dark golden brown, but my cake is still not finished baking
This honey olive oil cake has a high amount of sugar and olive oil in the recipe. So, it browns quicker. If the top of your cake is too brown place a sheet of aluminum foil over the cake while it’s baking to prevent it from burning.
Which baking rack do I bake on in the oven?
Always center rack, if your oven is a little old, I recommend getting an oven thermometer to check the temperature of your oven.
Honey Olive Oil Cake with Fresh Figs
Ingredients
Honey Olive Oil Cake
- 1 1/4 cup Sugar
- 2 tsp Orange Zest
- 1 tbsp Lemon Zest
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 2 cups All purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Salt
- 3 tbsp Lemon Juice
- 1 cup Milk
- 1/4 cup Honey
- 2 large eggs whole
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 1/4 cup Olive Oil
Mascarpone Frosting
- 8 oz Mascarpone
- 1 cup Heavy cream
- 2 tbsp Honey
- 1/3 cup Powdered Sugar
Instructions
Honey Olive Oil Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Grease a 9-inch springform cake pan (if you don’t have one just use an 8in or 9-inch cake pan) with nonstick spray and line the bottom of the cake pan with parchment paper and set to the side.
- In a large bowl combine all your wet ingredients into the bowl and beat until well combined.
- (A helpful tip, measure 1/3 cup honey after you measure the olive oil, it’s easier to get the honey to come out)
- Add lemon zest and orange zest into another large bowl and add in the sugar. With your fingers rub the zest with the sugar to release the oil in the zest. If you choose to do a blended citrus zest divide it with half lemon zest and orange zest.
- Measure out the dry ingredients and add it to the sugar zest mixture, whisk until dry ingredients are fully combined.
- Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and then mix until there are no more dry ingredients.
- Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula to ensure that everything has been thoroughly mixed in.
- Pour the honey olive oil cake batter into the prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in has crumbs sticking to it.
- Allow the cake to cool before removing the cake from the springform pan and then transfer to a cooling rack to allow the cake to fully cool for 30-40 minutes before frosting the cake.
Mascarpone Frosting:
- In a medium saucepan with water in it filled about 1/3 of the way, put it on the stove and turn the heat to medium low heat.
- With a heat proof safe bowl place on top of the saucepan and add the butter, mascarpone cheese, honey and heavy cream. (Make sure that the water in the pot is not directly touching the bottom of the bowl and that there is always water in the pot)
- Heat the mascarpone mixture until all the ingredients have combine, which should take about 5-10 minutes.
- Place the mixture into the fridge to allow it to cool for 25 minutes. Once cool, whip the mixture with an electric hand mixer or stand mixer until it forms medium to stiff peaks.
Assembly:
- Place Honey olive oil cake on a serving plate and with a spatula lather the honey mascarpone frosting on top of the cake and then dress the cake with fresh ripe figs and a drizzle of honey syrup.
- Enjoy the cake or set the cake in the refrigerator to let the flavors mend before serving.
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